Complete Works of Emile Zola (650 page)

Octave had kept hold of her little warm hand which seemed to mould itself to his, and he continued kissing it lightly, on the fingers. She turned her eyes towards him, and gazed upon him with a vague and tender look; then, in a maternal way, she uttered this single word:

“Child!”

Thinking himself encouraged, he wished to take her round the waist, and draw her on to the sofa; but she freed herself without any violence, and slipped from his arms, laughing, and with an air of thinking that he was merely playing.

“No, leave me alone, do not touch me, if you wish that we should remain good friends.”

“Then, no?” asked he in a low voice.

“What, no? What do you mean? Oh! my hand, as much as you like!”

He had again taken hold of her hand. But, this time, he opened it, kissing it on the palm; and, her eyes half closed, treating the little game as a joke, she opened her fingers like a cat spreads out its claws to be tickled inside its paw. She did not let him go farther than the wrist The first day, a sacred line was drawn there, where harm began.

“The priest is coming upstairs,” Louise suddenly entered and said, on returning from some errand.

The orphan had the yellow complexion, and the squashed features of girls forgotten on doorsteps. She burst into an idiotic laugh on beholding the gentleman eating, as she thought, out of her mistress’s hand. But at a glance from the latter, she hastened away.

“I greatly fear I shall never be able to do anything with her,” resumed Madame Juzeur. “However, it is only right to try and put one of those poor souls into the straight path. Come this way, if you please, Monsieur Mouret.”

She conducted him to the dining-room, so as to leave the drawing-room to the priest, whom Louise ushered in. She invited Octave to come again and have a chat. It would be a little company for her; she was always so sad and so lonely! Happily, religion consoled her.

That evening, towards five o’clock, Octave experienced a real relief in making himself comfortable at the Pichons’ whilst waiting for dinner. The house bewildered him somewhat; after having allowed himself to be impressed with a provincial’s respect, in the face of the rich solemnity of the staircase, he was gliding to an exaggerated contempt for what he thought he could guess took place behind the high mahogany doors. He was quite at sea; it seemed to him now that those middle-class women, whose virtue had frozen him at first, should yield at a sign; and, when one of them resisted, he was filled with surprise and rancour.

Marie blushed with joy on seeing him place the pile of books which he had fetched for her in the morning on the sideboard. She kept saying:

“How nice of you, Monsieur Octave! Oh! thank you, thank you! And how kind to come early! Will you have a glass of sugar and water with some cognac? It assists the appetite.”

He accepted, just to please her. Everything appeared pleasant to him, even Pichon and the Vuillaumes, who conversed round the table, slowly mumbling over again their usual Sunday conversation. Marie, now and again, ran to the kitchen, where she was cooking a boned shoulder of mutton; and he dared in a chaffing way to follow her, seizing hold of her before the stove, and kissing her on the nape of her neck. She, without a cry and without a start, turned round and kissed him in her turn on the mouth, with lips which were always cold. This coolness seemed delicious to the young man.

“Well, and your new Minister?”
asked he of Pichon, on returning into the room.

But the clerk gave a start. Ah! there was going to be a new Minister of Public Instruction! He knew nothing of it; no one ever troubled about that at the Ministry.

“The weather is so bad!” he abruptly remarked. “It is quite impossible to keep one’s trousers clean!”

Madame Vuillaume talked of a girl at Batignolles who had gone to the bad.

“You will scarcely believe me, sir,” said she. “She had been exceedingly well brought up; but she felt so bored at her parents’, that she had twice tried to throw herself into the street. It is incredible!”

“They should have put bars on the windows,” said Monsieur Vuillaume simply.

The dinner was delightful. This kind of conversation lasted all the time around the modest board lighted by a little lamp. Pichon and Monsieur Vuillaume, having got on to the staff of the Ministry, did nothing but talk of head-clerks and second head-clerks; the father-in-law obstinately alluded to those of his time, then recollected that they were dead; whilst, on his side, the son-in-law continued to speak of the new ones, in the midst of an inextricable confusion of names. The two men, however, as well as Madame Vuillaume, agreed on one point: fat Chavignat, he who had such an ugly wife, had gone in for a great deal too many children. It was absurd for a man of his position. And Octave smiled, feeling happy and at his ease; he had not spent such an agreeable evening for a long time; he even ended by blaming Chavignat with conviction. Marie quieted him with her clear, innocent look, devoid of emotion at seeing him seated beside her husband, helping them both according to their tastes, with her rather tired air of passive obedience.

Punctually at ten o’clock, the Vuillaumes rose to take their departure. Pichon put on his hat. Every Sunday he saw them to the omnibus. Out of deference, he had got into the habit about the time of his marriage, and the Vuillaumes would have been deeply offended had he now tried to give it up. All three made for the Rue de Richelieu, then walked slowly up it, searching with a glance the Batignolles omnibuses which kept passing full, so that Pichon often went thus as far as Montmartre; for he would never have thought of leaving his father and mother-in-law before seeing them into an omnibus. As they could not walk fast, it took him close upon two hours to go there and back.

They exchanged some friendly handshakes on the landing. Octave, on returning to the room with Marie, said quietly,

“It rains; Jules will not get back before midnight.”

And, as Lilitte had been put to bed early, he at once took Marie on his knees, and drank the rest of the coffee with her out of the same cup, like a husband glad at having got rid of his guests and at finding himself again in the quiet of his home, excited by a little family gathering, and able to kiss his wife at his ease, with the doors closed. A pleasant warmth filled the narrow room, where some frosted eggs had left an odour of vanilla. He was gently kissing the young woman under the chin, when some one knocked. Marie did not even give a start of affright. It was young Josserand, he who was a bit cracked. Whenever he could escape from the apartment opposite, he would come in this way to chat with her, attracted by her gentleness; and they both got on well together, remaining ten minutes at a time without speaking, exchanging at distant intervals phrases which had no connection with each other.

Octave, very much put out, remained silent.

“They’ve some people there,” stuttered Saturnin. “I don’t care a hang for their not letting me dine with them! So I took the lock off and bolted. It serves them right.”

“They will be anxious; you ought to go back,” said Marie, who noticed Octave’s impatience.

But the idiot laughed with delight. Then, with his embarrassed speech, he related what took place in his home. He seemed to come each time for the sake of thus relieving his memory.

“Papa worked all night again. Mamma slapped Berthe. I say, when people got married, does it hurt?”

And, as Marie did not reply, becoming excited, he continued:

“I won’t go to the country; I won’t. If they only touch her, I’ll strangle them; it’s easy to do in the night, when they’re asleep. The palm of her hand is as soft as note-paper. But, you know, the other is a beast of a girl — “

He recommenced, got more muddled still, and did not succeed in expressing what he had come to say. Marie, at length, made him return to his parents, without his even having noticed Octave’s presence.

Then the latter, through fear of being again disturbed, wanted to take the young woman into his own room. But she refused, her cheeks suddenly becoming scarlet. He, not understanding this bashfulness, said that they would be sure to hear Jules coming up, and that she would have time to slip into her room; and as he drew her along, she became quite angry, with the indignation of a woman to whom violence is being offered.

“No, not in your room, never! It would be too wrong. Let us remain here.”

And she ran to the farthest end of her room. Octave was still on the landing, surprised at this unexpected resistance, when the sounds of a violent altercation ascended from the courtyard. Really, everything seemed to be against him, he would have done better to have gone off to bed. Such an uproar was so unusual at that late hour, that he ended by opening a window, to hear what was going on. Monsieur Gourd, down below, was shouting out:

“I tell you, you shall not pass! The landlord has been sent for. He will come and turn you out himself.”

“What! turn me out!” replied a thick voice. “Don’t I pay my rent? Pass, Amélie, and if the gentleman touches you, we’ll have something to laugh at!”

It was the workman from upstairs, who had returned with the woman sent away in the morning. Octave leant out; but, in the black hole of the courtyard, he could only distinguish some big moving shadows in a ray of gaslight from the vestibule.

“Monsieur Vabre! Monsieur Vabre!” called the doorkeeper in urgent tones, as the carpenter shoved him aside. “Quick, quick, she is coming in!”

In spite of her poor legs, Madame Gourd had gone to fetch the landlord, who was just then at work on his great task. He was coming down. Octave could hear him furiously repeating:

“It is scandalous! it is disgraceful! I will never allow such a thing in my house!”

And, addressing the workman, whom his presence seemed at first to intimidate:

“Send that woman away, at once, at once. You hear me! we will have no women brought to the house.”

“But she’s my wife!” replied the workman in a scared way. “She is out at service, she comes once a mouth, when her people allow her to. What a fuss! It isn’t you who’ll prevent me sleeping with my wife, I suppose!”

At these words, the doorkeeper and the landlord quite lost their heads.

“I give you notice to quit,” stuttered Monsieur Vabre. “And, in the meantime, I forbid you to take my premises for what they are not. Gourd, turn that creature out on to the pavement. Yes, sir, I don’t like bad jokes. When a person is married, he should say so. Hold your tongue, do not give me any more of your rudeness!”

The carpenter, who was a jolly fellow, and who had no doubt had a drop too much wine, ended by bursting out laughing.

“It’s damned funny all the same. However, as the gentleman objects, you’d better return home, Amélie. We’ll wait till some other time. By Jove! I accept your notice with pleasure! I wouldn’t stop in such a hole on any account! There are some pretty goings-on in it, one comes across some rare filth. You won’t have women brought here, but you tolerate, on every floor, well-dressed strumpets who lead fine lives behind the doors! You set of muffs! you swells!”

Amélie had gone off so as not to cause her old man any more annoyance; and he, jolly, and without anger, continued his chaff. During this time, Monsieur Gourd protected Monsieur Vabre’s retreat, permitting himself to make a few remarks out loud. What a dirty set the lower classes were! One workman in a house was sufficient to pollute it.

Octave closed the window. But, just as he was returning to Marie, an individual who was lightly gliding along the passage, knocked up against him.

“What! it’s you again!” said he recognising Trublot.

The latter remained a second taken aback. Then, he wished to explain his presence.

“Yes, it is I. I dined at the Josserands’, and I’m going — “

Octave felt disgusted.

“What, with that slut Adèle? You declared it was not so.”

Then, Trublot assumed all his swagger, saying with an air of intense satisfaction:

“I assure you, my dear fellow, it’s awfully fine. She has such a skin, you’ve no idea what a skin!”

Then he railed against the workman, who had almost been the cause of his being caught on the servants’ staircase, and all his dirty fuss about women. He had been obliged to come round by the grand staircase. And, as he made off, he added:

“Remember, it is next Thursday that I am going to take you to see Duveyrier’s mistress. We will dine together.”

The house resumed it’s peacefulness, lapsing into that religious silence which seemed to issue from its chaste alcoves. Octave had rejoined Marie in the inner chamber at the side of the conjugal couch, where she was arranging the pillows. Upstairs, the chair being littered with the washhand basin and an old pair of shoes, Trublot sat down on Adèle’s narrow bed, and waited in his dress clothes and his white tie. When he recognised Julie’s step as she came up to bed, he held his breath, having a constant dread of women’s quarrels. At length Adèle appeared. She was in a temper, and went for him at once.

“I say, you! you might treat me a bit better, when I wait at table!”

“How, treat you better?
”

“Why of course you don’t even look at me, you never say if you please, when you ask for bread. For instance, this evening when I handed round the veal, you had a way of disowning me. I’ve had enough of it, look you! All the house badgers me with its nonsense. It’s too much, if you’re going to join the others!”

Whilst this was taking place, the workman in the next room, not yet sobered, talked to himself in so loud a voice that every one on that landing could hear him.

“Well! it’s funny all the same, that a fellow can’t sleep with his wife! No woman allowed in the house, you fussy old idiot! Just go now and poke your nose into all the rooms, and see what you’ll see!”

CHAPTER VII

For a fortnight past, with the view of getting uncle Bachelard to give Berthe a dowry, the Josserands had been inviting him to dinner almost every evening, in spite of his offensive habits.

When the marriage was announced to him, he had contented himself with giving his niece a gentle pat on the cheek, saying: